Today I bought a couple of CDs of English classical music – Elgar and Vaughan Williams. I must admit the Elgar disc is a compilation rather than a disc of any complete works. It includes the adagio from his cello concerto and those of his first two symphonies, along with Nimrod from the Enigma Variations.
The VW disc is of complete shorter works, all conducted by Sir Adrian Boult and it includes “The Lark Ascending” and “Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis” both of which I’d been looking to get for a while.
Tonight I went along to see The Czars (http://www.czarsmusic.com/) as part of the Tryptich Festival (a series of concerts rotating between Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen). The night was to showcase acts on former Cocteau Twins Simon Raymonde’s label Bella Union (everything I’ve heard from the label to date has been good, but I like The Czars the best and had missed the opportunity to see them in November last year in Glasgow).
I arrived too early (8pm, the soundcheck was still in progress) so I took a drive around Arthur’s Seat for the first time in years (whilst listening to Vaughan Williams). The many joggers made me feel guilty, but I could get where I was going a lot quicker than them.
Back at the venue, I re-arrived to find the first band, Bikini Atoll, already onstage. A four-piece comprising singer/guitartist/bassist, bassist/guitarist, keyboard/synth player and drummer. A mighty sound they produced and it left me thinking “I wish my music sounded like that” (but then many bands I see have that effect – often when listening to other people’s music I feel like just giving up).
Second act was Josh Martinez, a Canadian rapper, with his un-named sidekick. This certainly made it an eclectic evening. They looked like the Simon & Garfunkel of rap – and in fact must have thought so themselves, as there’s a pastiche of the “Bookends” album cover on Josh’s website with the rap duo’s faces superimposed.
I don’t think anyone who was there to see Bikini Atoll or The Czars would’ve expected to have been subjected to a rap act – but they won the crowd over with their boundless enthusiasm and sense of humour.
Lastly, were The Czars, or rather The Czar, as singer and pianist John William Grant is appearing solo for the first eight dates of the Czars’ European tour as the rest of the band can’t make it over until mid May. On digging around the net, I've found that the original band, which has recorded all their CDs to date, has fallen apart and John's assembled a brand new version of The Czars to take things forward...
Tonight, the first night, he’s accompanied by a guitarist sourced by the record company who’s had just one day to learn the 15 or so songs in the set. He does a good job. It’s a very low-key set, every song is a slow one – but Mr Grant’s voice is superb and the performance quite excellent.
Later on when talking to him, he said that this was his first ever solo gig so he was very nervous – it didn’t show.
Although I’d gone along on my own, I bumped into Andy Thomson, fellow former member of the Out of the Bedroom committee and William Douglas, a regular singer at the club. After the gig I gave them a lift to a club for which William had free tickets. On the way we had an interesting discussion on John Grant’s situation. It appears he’s worked in a restaurant in Denver for the last ten years whilst carrying on his music career. They allow him unpaid leave to travel the world playing his music though.
William was struggling to see why it was that artists with artistic integrity always seem to have it hard whilst the less “good” artists seem to get all the cash.
I pointed out that, as with the current trend in the UK for people to buy the quite dreadful single “Is This The Way To Amarillo”, you have to be able to sell your music to people who buy very little music if you want to achieve high sales of a record,
Many who’ve bought the above single will not buy another CD all year. Thus artists with a certain amount of erm, art, to their art, will always struggle, as it’s seldom the case that their work will crossover into the mainstream (especially not without some element of compromise). Of course, as with any rule, there will always be the exceptions, but I think, generally, the above holds true.
Andy has a programme on the occasional Edinburgh Radio Station Leith FM and is going to London soon to visit his girlfriend. He offered to interview John down there and he accepted. I'd asked John about a 3" Cd single I have by the Czars of some film music they did a few years back and he said it was so rare, he didn't even have a copy - so I ended up offering to burn a copy of a CD for the artist who made it! I'll give it to Andy to pass on...
I dropped Andy and William off and headed home, noting the noise in the car was still there (having been told today on the phone by the garage that, in their view, even though come Monday they will attempt for a fifth or sixth time to fix it, the noise was “normal and acceptable” – arses….plus they haven’t even ordered the new dashboard to replace the one that’s had nipples added by their superb workmanship….don’t get me started!!!)
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